10,000 Hz Legend Image
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critics What's this?

User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 20 Ratings

  • Summary: The French indie-electronica band made waves with their 1998 debut 'Moon Safari,' but since then their only release has been the motion picture score to Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides." The wait for their true sophomore album is over with the release of '10,000 Hz Legend,' which includes guest vocal contributions from Beck and Buffalo Daughter. Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 22
  2. Negative: 2 out of 22
  1. '10,000Hz Legend' is nothing like 'Moon Safari', then again it doesn't really bear a resemblance to much. Instead, it's a glowing, highly ambitious, quasi-concept album that sees Air spiralling off on a wildly idiosyncratic and brilliantly insane tangent all of their own.
  2. 80
    Maybe the stint scoring music for the acclaimed film The Virgin Suicides helped them segue their too-atmospheric-for-the-room lingerings into something more tangible. [May 2001, p.76]
  3. 60
    Like Radiohead with Kid A, Air benefits greatly here from the extra slack given only to those somehow deemed "artists" rather than mere musicians. Coming from almost anyone else, this album would end up in the trash heap long before it had a chance to sink in.
  4. Supporters have argued that this is " a perfect comedown album". In the sense that you'll feel like you're coming down even if you haven't taken anything, yes.

See all 22 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 11
  3. Negative: 1 out of 11
  1. Alex
    10
    Every song on this album absolutely sings to me. I first got hooked by "How Does It Make You Feel", but quickly found the rest of the album to be just as redeeming. 10,000 Hz Legend is one of those rare albums that you can just play from start to finish and lose yourself. As much as I love Moon Safari and Pocket Symphony, this is undoubtedly my favourite. Expand
  2. alexm
    10
    just the best
  3. Ri
    8
    I love the band and I own their previous works. Though I feel it's very important to present something new (rather than just simply repeat the formula of great albums such as moon safari), I think that 10,000 hrtz legend lost that french vibe that have Air's records an experience from the outter space. Radio#1, Don't be light and The Vagabond sound like 'northamerican taste' tracks, very commercial, and in some ways, empty. The rest of the album is soft and dark, lonely, romantic and sincere; the perfect follow-up of the Virgin Suicides sdtk. Expand
  4. Wander
    6
    Disappointing follow-up to the classic 'Moon safari'. Talkie walkie, the successor, is also way better. The first three songs are great, air-standard, build up tension and give the band a new, heavier, direction. Most of the following songs are pretty directionless and miss the magic of the other albums. Still, surely not a bad album. Expand

See all 11 User Reviews